The problem of induction can be characterized as having two sides: the epistemological problem, which is how to distinguish between good and bad inductive methods, and the metaphysical problem, which is how to altogether distinguish between good and bad inductions.[1] On the Wittgensteinian view put forward here, we will offer agreement with Hume’s response to the epistemological problem. However, the epistemological response is only possible when predicated upon some idea of a good induction—before we can determine reliability, which is a tabulation of frequency of “successes,” we must first determine what we mean by “success.” Fundamentally, the question of good and bad inductions is what underlies the real crux of an attack on induction: in most cases, how we might traditionally define truth (particularly in a realist fashion) is going to lead to a susceptibility of our inductions to skeptical objection. Indeed, some have been inclined to, in accepting Hume’s arguments on induction, concede that the metaphysical problem of induction is insoluble.[2] Given their criteria for truth and falsehood, this is not surprising.

First, by investigating the terms used in Hume’s argument—particularly “necessity”—we will show how the argument against induction must presuppose induction to succeed. Then, by clarifying our picture of truth, we will argue that the metaphysical problem is in one sense irrelevant to our own position, but show a sense in which we do account for how good inductions are separated from bad inductions. Before proceeding into our arguments, however, we must explain Hume’s arguments against induction.

Hume on the Problem of Induction[3]

In Book I, Part III of the Treatise of Human Nature (1740), Hume formulated what would come to be known as the problem of induction so commandingly—especially for his time—that the problem is also accordingly named “Hume’s Problem.” While the contemporary terminology of induction does not enter his discussion, Hume’s primary concern in Part III was with notions of causality and causal inference.

Because we have no impression of the relation of causation, Hume seeks to alternatively couch causation in terms of human thought, and hence defines a “cause” like so: “An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are plac’d in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects that resemble the latter.” He provides several definitions in the course of his work, but this adequately characterizes his general notion of causation.

Hume distinguishes causal belief from causal inference, the latter of which is only the anticipation of similar conjunctions between a precedent and some state from past conjunctions when the precedent is observed. Causal beliefs, on the other hand, are of the form “[Precedent] X causes Y,” which comes about from reflection on causal inferences. Hume’s framing of the problem of induction, implicitly through his discussion about causation, then, is as follows: in trying to find an account for good or reliable inductions, if we take the statement “all past experiences of X have also been Y” to be a statement of causation, then adding “t is X” to it should yield the good induction “t, not yet observed, is also Y.” However, since causality is not an objective feature of the world, this is not a possibility. The Humean problem, then, is to adjudicate among inductive habits in the absence of any objective distinction like causality, broken down into the epistemological and metaphysical parts described in the introduction. Broadly speaking, Hume’s point is that judgments about future or otherwise unknown instances are problematic, because such judgments are neither a report of an experience, nor a logical consequence of prior experience. This leaves an uncertain space in which we have multiple means of making those judgments that yield different results, but must find a way of choosing the best one (the epistemological problem). Further, we must define “best” in this context (the metaphysical problem).

Some have suggested that Hume has set induction up for failure by making induction far too stringent in suggesting that it proceeds from the premises “All observed Fs have also been Gs” and “a is an F” to the conclusion “a, not yet observed, is also a G.” Instead, they contend that the proper conclusion is “it is therefore probable that a, not yet observed, is also a G.”[4] Hume’s response is simple enough: probabilistic connections are no different from causal connections in that they are not to be found in our experience of the world, but they depend on habits of the mind. Thus, while we can complicate matters more by incorporating probability, the same problem remains.

Generally, Hume puts forward the following dilemma to demonstrate the impossibility of justifying any sort of induction. Given that any justification must be either deductive or inductive, deductive conclusions (which are necessarily true) can not justify inductive conclusions (which are never necessarily true). On the other horn of the dilemma, inductive justification of induction would be circular, since it uses the very principle it sets out to defend. Thus, it is clear that by this reasoning, induction is unjustifiable.

Hume qualifies this conclusion by saying that we may review our inferences and reflect upon their reliability, forming a hierarchy of meta-level inductions—specifically, a chain of inductions about inductions about inductions and so on. Reflecting on these inductions in sequence progressively increases our uncertainty ad infinitum, leading Hume to ask how we “retain a degree of belief, which is sufficient for our purpose, either in philosophy or in common life?”[5] Hume’s answer, in short, is to propose two general epistemic rule types: those that lead us to singular predictive inferences (in other words, our basic inductive methodology), and those that we apply as corrective or qualificatory measures toward the products of rules of the first type. The former could be described as some system of sorting out confirming and disconfirming instances, and the establishment of a threshold of evidence at which we accept or reject an inference. This could also be framed probabilistically (e.g. Bayesian induction). The latter type of rule would form some system of delimiting the precise significance of an inference given its evidence; for example, it might show us in what ways an inference may be falsified, and thus the level of certainty with which we should treat a particular proposition.

The Non-Problem of Induction

A Wittgensteinian response to any philosophical “problem” can be described as a reduction of the problem to a linguistic puzzle, and a subsequent resolution of that puzzle. In short, a linguistic puzzle is a seemingly insoluble contradiction that can be successfully rectified by clarifying the definitions of the terms in use. Once the definitions have been clarified, the next stage is to determine whether the conclusion (whose terms have also been clarified) still follows from the premises, and whether the premises are true. Once this has been done, a problem should have been shown to be merely confusion. This methodology is most strongly associated with Wittgenstein’s most significant work, Philosophical Investigations.[6]

Given this background, we can now freely address the problem of induction. To show how the problem of induction can be reduced to a linguistic puzzle, we will first return to a simplified formulation of it: no inductive conclusions necessarily follow from their premises, because we have no justification for believing that the unobserved will be like the observed once we observe it (a generalization of “the future will be like the past.”) The justificatory problem of induction, put in simple terms by Hume, states it similarly: the definite outcomes of deduction can not justify the indefinite outcomes of induction, and induction can not justify induction without circularity. Thus, we are not justified in believing the conclusion of an inductive argument.

Now, to prove that this is merely a linguistic puzzle, we have to show how clarifying our terms in this argument will dissipate the problem, whether in showing some self-contradictory aspect of the argument, showing that the conclusion that follows from those definitions is unimportant to us, showing that the desired conclusion of the argument does not follow from the premises, etc. By an “unimportant conclusion,” we only mean that all further implications of that conclusion do not constitute anything that merits addressing or reparation. In other words, the conclusion made to have followed from the premises is not a philosophical problem requiring a solution on our part, but just some proposition that conforms to its premises. Our criteria for importance is not simply soundness, as there are many sound arguments that are not of philosophical concern to us. Thus, it is certainly the case that if we define “justification for a belief” as “immunity to the logical possibility of subsequent falsifying events,” we could easily concoct an argument from skeptical premises that (properly) concludes that we are not “justified” in believing any proposition because we have not immunized it from subsequent falsifying events. But, as we will see, this conclusion sounds important because it uses a word which is usually of epistemic importance (justification), but is in fact unimportant because it fails to have any implications worth considering.

We can apply this method to the problem of induction by first investigating the employment of the idea of necessity in the argument against induction. Asserting that there is no necessary connection between matters of fact is not incorrect, given a particular meaning of the word “necessary”—namely, where “necessity” implies conformity to the rules of deductive reasoning. Given that induction has been identified as non-deductive because of the “unfounded” assumption that the future will be like the past, then we can conclude that there is no “necessary” connection between inductive arguments and their conclusions. Asserting that this poses some sort of epistemic problem is a mistake, however. In other words, clarifying the definitions as we have, this conclusion follows from the premises, but it does not tell us anything important. The sense in which we mean “necessary” to establish this conclusion is much connected to the sense in which we used “justified” above: it produces a conclusion that sounds scary because of what we associate with the words in it, but can only establish its conclusion by redefining those words in a way that makes the conclusion ineffective.

Naturally, a defender of induction would be impelled to ask “why is the assumption that the future will be like the past unfounded?”; but note that we are returning to the justificatory dilemma once again. In the dilemma, Hume has ruled out induction justifying induction, on the basis that it is a circular argument. But Hume must find circular arguments unacceptable for some reason: specifically, because of deductive logic. We know from this that the only way to “justify” anything, as the word is used in the argument, is to find a deductive argument for it. So it is evident that understanding the exact implications of accepting the notion of necessity as it arises in deductive logic as our standard for justifiability will help us understand why the conclusion that there is no “necessary” connection between inductive arguments and their conclusions is not important. In fact, we will now show how using deductive logic as a standard of justifiability (in this context) renders the argument against induction useless.

Much like the concept of infinitude, the concept of necessity has no direct referent in our sense experience. Because we have implicitly rejected an a priori account for it, we can only say that the notion of necessity is an effect of our repeat experiences and interactions with the world which represents an effective certitude with which we expect some association to hold. We say that by necessity, the sun rising in the east is associated with morning, but this is an expression of an effective certainty than a certainty so as to assert our omniscience; we simply have little incentive to mention the remaining logical possibility that the sun might not rise in the east. Hume’s account of necessity is the same:

Upon this head I repeat what I have often had occasion to observe, that as we have no idea, that is not deriv’d from an impression, we must find some impression, that gives rise to this idea of necessity, if we assert we have really such an idea. In order to this I consider, in what objects necessity is commonly suppos’d to lie; and finding that it is always ascrib’d to causes and effects, I turn my eye to two objects suppos’d to be plac’d in that relation; and examine them in all the situations, of which they are susceptible. I immediately perceive, that they are contiguous in time and place, and that the object we call cause precedes the other we call effect. In no one instance can I go any farther, nor is it possible for me to discover any third relation betwixt these objects. I therefore enlarge my view to comprehend several instances; where I find like objects always existing in like relations of contiguity and succession.

Clearly, Hume adheres to our view that the epistemic origins of an idea must reside in sense-experiences (“impressions”). Though he was speaking about causal necessity in this passage, his reasoning ensures that he accepts that our idea of deductive logic is also the consequence of a series of impressions. So, given that, we have actually gone ahead and strengthened Hume’s justificatory dilemma by turning it into just a lemma: the option of justifying induction deductively is nonsensical for reasons that prevent us from even admitting it into our discussion. To justify using deduction, we must first justify induction.

Hence, the conclusion of the argument that constitutes the problem of induction, that we are not “justified” in believing the conclusion of inductive arguments, is itself dependent on an inductive argument. Here, we have reached the skeptical error of externalizing logic, which creates arguments more paradoxical than unimportant on this account. If the logical possibility that things could be some other way than we believe them is used to undermine all of our beliefs, then no beliefs undermined in this way can be believed while constructing logical possibilities. But the construction of logical possibilities is only possible given the inductive process that creates our idea of necessity. Further, we cannot sensibly falsify (or take any other action standing outside of) logic, since we can not describe what a non-logical world would look like.[7] Yet this is precisely what, by implication, skepticism requires by questioning our foundations for logic, which are the very experiences and thus inferences from experience that they challenge.

Because Hume does not want to make extra-sensory assertions at all, he is then also committed to holding to this account for the very logical principles he uses to criticize inductive statements. Thus, we have established that the argument attempting to establish that induction is problematic implicitly must assert what it intends to disprove. By showing how we can not use deductive necessity as a criteria for justification (at the epistemic level), we have eliminated the standard by which induction is considered to be problematic. More generally, we have implied that some coordination of repeat sense impressions is the only means we have of generating any criteria of justification. And we can properly call such coordination “induction,” as it is indeed in what “the problem of induction” purports to show defect. By this, we have shown how the general argument against induction fails.

More clarification of the unproblematic nature of induction is still worthwhile, nonetheless. For one, we are still pressed with the question of importance of skeptical arguments such as the argument against induction, as suggested earlier. If the lack of necessity of inductive conclusions prevents us from attaining omniscience—an immunity of our theories to subsequent falsifying events—and can validly offer no prescriptive changes in our behavior, there seems to be no value in pointing it out. It is part of the unavoidable limits of our world. We can label this state as our being “unjustified” in believing inductive conclusions, but what have we changed by doing so? We could easily say a belief is unjustifiable when it does not reduce its conclusions to the properties of cheese. We must ask, “Unjustified relative to what?” The word must be put in some context to have any implications. Saying that we are “unjustified” because we can not look beyond the limits of our world—a precise lack of context—can not have any condemning epistemic implications, for the simple reason that there is no prescription that could ever conceivably change it! To speak meaningfully about “justification,” then, we must affix it to some sensory phenomena to which we can appeal to differentiate among the justified and the unjustified. In this regard, there is still a sense in which we have “justification”; in Humean terms, that sense is predicated on the notion that some inductions are more reliable than others.

Finding out how to distinguish the reliability of different inductive methods is the epistemological component of the problem of induction. More or less, Hume’s response to this part of the problem works quite well: Hume’s intuition that induction about induction begins to yield how we separate good inductive habits from bad ones is straightforward enough. We look at different inductive methods applied over time, and see how often each method produced a good induction. From this, we discern the reliability of different methods.

It is in reference to the so-called metaphysical problem of induction that we can offer more clarity regarding the validity of induction. Certainly, the metaphysical problem, if unanswered, leaves the epistemological problem insoluble as well: after all, we do need some account for what is a “good” versus “bad” induction in order to determine which inductive methods are more reliable than others. Yet, having tossed out criteria for “good” and “bad” such as “corresponding with the external world,” the answer is quite simple: there is no metaphysical problem because there is no metaphysics (at least in the relevant sense).

One posing the metaphysical problem might ask: if we only have sense experiences, what is there that could possibly provide objectivity? Indeed, what reason do we have to sort and organize different experiences to form theories? Without constraints, our sense experiences are simply floating variables from which we could construct an infinite amount of different theories with no difference in consequence. Thus, just as a 2-variable equation has infinite solutions until another equation constrains it, so too does what is “true” have infinite solutions until we affix some constraint to our interpretations. In short, our interpretation of sensory phenomena only has implications when those phenomena arise to some degree outside of our will, and we have particular goals for those phenomena. We have particular desires to bring about certain things in our sense experiences, but we can not simply will these things to come about. We wish to taste something sweet, but no amount of willing a taste of sweetness into our mouths gets us that. Ultimately, this lies against a background of what we understand to be necessary for accomplishing our goals (life) and what we understand to be the end of all accomplishment (death). Simply put, our “metaphysics” is one of life versus death.

That we can not merely will certain things to occur is a basis for objectivity in interpreting our sense experiences; our acceptance of mortality is what gives us the motive to take one interpretation over all and call it “truth,” even if only by the actions we take. 14^th-century explorers had two competing views of the earth, one saying it was flat, one saying it was round. Without fear of death or fear of a voyage done for nothing (both objective constraints), this debate would have been meaningless. After all, there are infinite logical possibilities as to why a flat-earth theory might still prevail over a round-earth. But that explorers found new lands and, after sailing in one direction long enough, wound up in the same place, and have acted on the principle of “circumnavigation” successfully up until the present, has compelled people to accept a round-earth theory over a flat one. People who have acted on this principle, other things equal, have achieved the goals they set out, and they and others will continue to act on that principle. In this sense, people have accepted the round-earth theory as truth; it was a “good” induction.

Thus, good inductions are separated from bad ones on the basis of how successfully they inform our goal-directed actions, where success is measured by the presence of a desired sense experience. By our having thrown out realism, the only case of error that can even be meaningfully considered is where some theory posited based on sense experiences is later falsified by a subsequent sense experience. On our view, this is no longer a problem with induction, of course. It is merely a case in which a particular induction has been identified as “bad” through induction.

Undoubtedly, we can be continually pressed to justify each successive answer we have given. Why shouldn’t we doubt mortality, or anything else foundational to the above discussion? Certainly, there is a point at which we can no longer give any justification, yet it is the very point from which we get our notion of justification. We do superficially agree with the skeptic that such foundational propositions lie beyond any empirical verification, but this is only because our notion of empirical verification is solely derived from these kinds of propositions. At some point, we must reach bedrock: certain beliefs “underlie all questions and thinking.”[8] Even if we imagined the most hard-core doubter telling us that we have “no reason” to believe the “biological myth” of death, he could not be using anything but human-contextual concepts in, say, appealing to our self-interest through telling us that what we believe is false and that we ought to change it. In that way, doubt is only possible with knowledge, so an all-encompassing, ‘hyperbolic’ doubt is clearly nonsensical; in even thinking of that doubt, much more communicating that doubt, we are invariably asserting things that we know.

In addition to questioning the logical feasibility of Hume’s general argument against induction, we have now also supplemented it with an answer to the fundamental question of how we separate good inductions from bad inductions. Most importantly, we have shown how a careful examination of the terms at play in the argument against induction demonstrates how it relies on a contrived sense of necessity as a criterion for justification and improperly treats this idea of necessity as standing independently of induction. In this, we showed how induction is, in fact, the basis of all criteria in evaluating the justification of our beliefs. Then, in addressing the metaphysical problem, we showed how meaningful criteria are generated against a back-drop of goal-oriented action.

With this answer to the supposed problem of induction in hand, we have a kind of argument which, when generalized, defeats skeptical arguments against empiricism. By reducing our criteria for the truth or falsehood of a proposition to its relation to strictly sensory phenomena, we have removed the possibility of skeptical error, and brought the concept of error within the boundaries of the senses: we can only be mistaken in a sense that is relative to other sense experiences. Hume, imaginably, would have appreciated this, as he did not desire to be a thoroughgoing skeptic; he only wished to fight off philosophical phantoms, much like Wittgenstein did. Again, like Wittgenstein, he sought a rational basis for our norms of speech and action, but found the answers of philosophers to be mystical and woefully deficient. Indeed, he did not see a convincing means of showing how we could justifiably believe in induction, and retreated to a seemingly resigned position of “custom and habit.” Our goal here, as was Wittgenstein’s goal, was to show how we are justified in believing in our senses, and thus induction—without resignation.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. This exposition of Hume’s account of the problem is paraphrased from this source.

[4] Ibid., section 2: “Hume”

[5] Ibid., section 7: “Hume’s Dilemma Revisited”

[6] The Wikipedia entry on Philosophical Investigations explains Wittgenstein’s approach well, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Method_and_presentation

[7] Tractatus, 3.031

[8] On Certainty pp. 415.

Skepticism and logical possibilityWhile skepticism takes many different forms, the primary form of skepticism under consideration can be described by single, general argument. This skepticism’s basic premise is that we are unable to logically disprove possible states of affairs in the world that would undermine our claims to knowledge about reality (“skeptical possibilities”). Generally, arguments for skepticism take the form of a modus ponens argument, such as,

1. If I can not distinguish between dreaming and being awake, then I can not be sure I have a body.
2. I can not distinguish between dreaming and being awake.
3. Therefore, I can not be sure that I have a body.

Support for the second premise derives from the possibility that, for any empirical proposition we form at a point in time, events could follow that would provide evidence to falsify that belief. If this is true, no empirical proposition is verifiable and thus none are certain.

Wittgenstein does not disagree with this, to an extent; he grants that such subsequent falsifying events are indeed always a possibility. For example, one may have very good reasons for believing his old friend is standing in front of him, but it is imaginable for that person to suddenly start behaving as though he was not that old friend after all (613).[1] However, Wittgenstein challenges the notion that such events transpiring would undermine the relevant prior empirical beliefs about the situation. In other words, he argues that such possibilities do not undermine “knowledge,” in the meaningful sense of the word, but merely fail to satisfy the conditions of a notion of logic removed from practitioners of logic (human beings).

On Doubt

In the second paragraph of On Certainty, Wittgenstein elucidates the role of doubt, almost spelling out immediately what will become his objection against skepticism: “from its seeming to me – or to everyone – to be so, it doesn’t follow that it is so. What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it [emphasis added]” (2). Though the skeptics are correct in questioning the assertion of seeming or “common-sense” empirical fact, such doubts fail to (meaningfully) endorse their assertion that all knowledge can be undermined.

Primarily, the skeptics make the error of conceiving logic as an empirical statement – as something independent of the agent in question – that is subject to the possibility of falsification. The Tractatus, though earlier in Wittgenstein’s philosophical development, is particularly illustrative of this problem with skepticism: “Propositions cannot represent logical form: it is mirrored in them. What finds reflection in language, language cannot represent.”[2] Moreover, we cannot sensibly falsify (or take any other action standing outside of) logic, since we can not describe what a non-logical world would look like.[3] Yet this is precisely what skepticism demands.

Skepticism, by externalizing logic, thus encounters serious error when it casts extreme doubts upon common-sense propositions, which are necessary for establishing language (and hence the use of logic). When someone says, “There are trees,” he is presupposing the existence of objects. This is not to imply an epistemological assertion that there are objects in a specific sense of the word, but it simply reveals the absurdity of saying “objects do not exist.” If one holds that to be true, he runs into the intractable problem of explaining of what it is that one is speaking when one says “there are trees.” Day to day life demonstrates that common-sense propositions must be known in some way, as evidenced by the fact that we say things to others like “move that table over here” or “open the window” (7). In light of this, the nature of being mistaken about a statement like, “I am certain that these are words on this paper” is unclear (17, 24, 32). What it would be like to find out that “here is not a hand” is peculiar and seemingly indescribable by language. This is because the language-games people use, those ingrained deeply in their practices and beliefs, depend on affirming such propositions in order for them to make any sense (to be explained shortly).

Furthermore, as Wittgenstein asserts several times, the notion of doubt presupposes certainty (115 and elsewhere). In order for one to doubt anything, one must first have certainty about what he doubts, be certain that he, in fact, doubts it, and so on. This relates closely to the foundation of (the human expression of) logic in language, as implied in Tractatus. In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein delves into the nature of language games, which later play an important role in On Certainty. Section 7 of Investigations states, “I shall call it the whole, consisting of the language and the actions into which it is woven, the language-game.”

Wittgenstein explores how a child learns and the relationship between its learning and language in section 6 of the Investigations. A child learns what words mean by ostensive action; for example, one might instruct, “that is a chair; that is a car; that is red; etc.” In all this, however, there is a necessity for an understanding of ostensive definition itself. A child, to learn that “this is called ‘car’,” must first comprehend that names can be assigned to things. Later, in section 31, Wittgenstein uses an example of teaching someone how to play chess. When he points to a piece and says, “this is the king; it can move like this,…” the phrase “this is called the ‘king’” is only a definition if the student knows what a game is, what a piece in a game is, etc.

The point of the exploration of language games is, in short, that understanding requires some background of trust – some kind of sureness. Continuing in On Certainty with the case of the child, Wittgenstein says, “the child learns by believing the adult. Doubt comes after belief” (160). A child could never learn anything if he constantly questioned existence, for if that were to happen, he could never learn the definitions of things ostensively, just as if a person were to question the game or the pieces of chess, he would never learn that “this is called “the king” and it moves like so.”

The process of learning language is one of action (or reaction) first, then epistemological reflection at a later time once a system of beliefs is formed and it becomes gradually understood where doubt can be reasonable (538). For example, a child initially listens to verbal and written instructions, responding trustingly and candidly to what others say. When a child realizes that people have the capability to lie, however, he then has a reasonable basis for sometimes doubting the truth of what someone says. The system of belief he develops is essential to forming these kinds of curiosities and doubts. If he did not understand that other human beings like himself existed and behaved autonomously and with similar capabilities, he could not even begin to comprehend the notion of doubting the truth of their words. Moreover, even when he believed and spoke candidly, he would not have been able to do so had he questioned the existence of other human beings, and he would have not been able to understand the existence of other human beings if he questioned the existence of a world external to him.

Language is inextricably embedded into our lives. Without it, we would be unable to learn, and without learning, we would be unable to doubt. Further, it is the common understanding and foundations of language that allow human beings to communicate. Incidentally, by no means is the plain use of signs universally indicative of meaning (another basic idea explored in Tractatus that blocks a potential route for skepticism). A person who interprets and acts upon the mathematical directive “halve” by multiplying by three hundred is not casting doubt upon halving, but is merely out of sync with the rules and norms of a language-game. He is not presenting a skeptical challenge to knowledge of mathematics.

At the crux of his argument, Wittgenstein rejects the Cartesian-style premise that all propositions, even foundational ones, should be doubted along with any beliefs that they justify, unless they can be proven empirically. The skeptics’ doubt of these propositions does not merely test the truth, falsehood, or likelihood of those propositions, but ultimately necessitates questioning the methods by which testable empirical propositions are tested (317, 318). If all knowledge is based on testable empirical propositions that are justified by methods that are themselves subject to the skeptics’ pervasive doubt, then one must always acknowledge skeptical possibilities (i.e. the skeptics’ position is meaningful).

To counter this, Wittgenstein explains that claims like “here is a hand” or “the world has existed for longer than five minutes” merely appear to be statements about the external world that are true or false. However, these propositions lie beyond knowledge or doubt, because they serve as the framework by which we can speak about objects in the world. He uses two metaphors: first, that these kinds of propositions are like a “river-bed” that allow the “river of language” to flow freely (97, 99); and second, that the propositions are like hinges on a door, which must be fixed in order for the door to function in any significant way (341, 343). These kinds of propositions ostensively defined; they are not making an empirical claim about the external world, but merely show an example and hence demonstrate how the statement is to be used. The possibility of language is not made by actual facts in the world (which the skeptic can always undermine), but by simply never calling into question those facts (creating the “river-bed”).[4] Thus, Wittgenstein does superficially agree with the skeptic that such foundational propositions lie beyond empirical verification, but questions the sensibility and usefulness of such an assertion.

Objection to Moore’s Objections

G.E. Moore attempted his own refutation of skepticism, toward which On Certainty was inspired and directed to a large degree. Moore wrote several articles in challenging skepticism, including A Defense of Common Sense, Four Forms of Skepticism, and Proof of an External World. His general objection can be summarized by taking the skeptics’ modus ponens and using the same conditional to form a modus tollens argument. Using the same example as earlier, Moore would argue,

1. If I can not distinguish between dreaming and being awake, then I can not be sure I have a body.
2. I am sure I have a body.
3. Therefore, I can distinguish between dreaming and being awake.

Though Moore is correct in challenging that doubting such basic claims is unreasonable, Wittgenstein suggests that Moore still fails to answer the skeptic because Moore’s claim that he knows he has a hand is subject to the question of how he knows- bringing him back to the beginning of the argument with the skeptics.

Furthermore, Wittgenstein accepts Moore’s propositions, but not his subjective assurance that they are true. The meaning of the phrase “I know that…” is initially explained in demonstrating the insufficiency of Moore’s arguments against skepticism. Firstly, “P” can not be properly inferred from someone’s statement, “I know P.” While “P” can be inferred from “he knows P,” this requires justification (13, 14). The assurance “I know” is insufficient to demonstrate that no mistake is possible (15). Besides the contextual exceptions of the usage of “I know” (“I can not be wrong,” “I thought I knew,” etc.), the phrase is insignificant; if one actually knows that something is the case, then it is the case.

He then proceeds to argue, “Moore’s mistake lies in this – countering the assertion that one cannot know that, by saying ‘I do know it’” (521). Since skepticism is nonsense, as Wittgenstein establishes, it need not and can not be refuted by a counter-example. Moore, actually, commits the same error as the skeptic by treating logic (which is founded on those basic propositions) as empirical statements requiring proof.

Wittgenstein makes a general statement about Moore’s argument, which also happens to be a repetition of one of the most important themes of On Certainty:

When Moore says he knows such and such, he is really enumerating a lot of empirical propositions which we affirm without special testing; propositions, that is, which have a peculiar logical role in the system of our empirical propositions (136).

Moore did not recognize this, instead attempting to answer the skeptic on epistemological grounds. Wittgenstein construes this attempt as not only one to refute skepticism, but to provide a list of “certain propositions… excluded from doubt” in a “logic-book” (625). According to Wittgenstein’s approach, however, the proper response to skepticism is not to delineate particular empirical facts, which can be ultimately undermined, to show certainty; rather, it is to assert that one must be sure of facts that allow one to think about other facts.

Closing

To return to the Tractatus once more, even there Wittgenstein’s anti-skeptic stance was developed in key ways: “Doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.” There are some things which must be taken without question in order for one to function as a human being. Some may mistake this as a kind of fideism, but it is, in fact, a necessity for thought and goal-directed action.

Wittgenstein aptly undermines the meaningfulness of skepticism by showing that its arguments depend in some way on what it sets out to disprove. The philosophical nature of the skeptics’ arguments is dependent on the kinds of necessary contextual statements embodied by Moore-type propositions. There is a dependency on some certainty in belief necessary for the use of language: “if you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words either” (114). Further, communication between two people – employed by skeptical philosophers, clearly – can not occur without some common ground. The most basic propositions like, “I have a body” or “here is a hand,” when doubted, wholly eliminate that common ground. Without certainty of rules of a language-game, which depend on commonality founded in propositions like “here is a hand,” all ideas and the meanings of all communication must be doubted, including those of skepticism. Skepticism is thus a self-detonating position.

Logic and experience can only be responsible for themselves, as there exist no other tools for evaluating them. Moore failed to call attention to the fact that skepticism uses an argument against logic and experience that requires logic and experience. Instead, he attempted to “play the skeptic’s game” by attempting to show examples that conform to the skeptics’ super-rational definition of knowledge, an attempt invariably doomed to failure. To doubt, one must have a foundation from which to doubt. He must have a position of truth to which he can retreat when he spots a falsehood. The skeptic wishes to criticize this position and any such positions, while still maintaining a meaningful existence as a human being who uses language and takes action. As On Certainty shows, those two desires are mutually incompatible. For all intents and purposes—intents and purposes, whose existences depend on human language and action—skepticism is left meaningless.

[2] Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.121

[3] Tractatus, 3.031

[4] Note that Wittgenstein clarifies that there is no “sharp boundary line” distinguishing between propositions like “here is a hand” and “at this distance from the sun there is a planet” (53), and in turn no sharp line between “rule” propositions (those of which we are sure) and empirical propositions (those which are justified by our rules) (319). He suggests that basic propositions vary and can be doubted, but only in context of fixed others. In line with the river-bed analogy, he likens this to sediments that are picked up from one part of the bed, carried off, re-deposited elsewhere, etc.

A universal describes a member of a class of mind-independent entities in reality that is not a particular thing, but an attribute, relation, etc. The realist position on universals posits that individuals share attributes with other individuals and that this commonality is manifested by the existence of universals. However, several philosophers have objected to this position, on the basis of objections because of the metaphysical strangeness or lack of necessity of universals, among others. In “On What There Is,” W.V. Quine addresses some of the logical and grammatical issues of ontology, and then relates them to the dispute over universals. Quine applies Russell’s theory of descriptions to form ontological propositions that entirely avoid referring to universals and invokes Occam’s razor to repudiate them as a result. One potential drawback to Quine’s approach is that he possibly fails to consistently apply Occam’s razor- as he applied it to the problematic singular descriptors- to the quantifiers (the “bound variables”) with which he replaces singular terms. Beyond that issue, however, Quine makes a convincing case against realist position on universals.

Before exploring universals, Quine discusses a series of preliminary concerns important for establishing his argument. He begins the article by declaring the problem of ontology to be finding the answer to a simple question: “What is there?” Because of the evident fact that there is disagreement on these issues, the first part of his argument is dedicated to exploring the issues of rival ontologies, manifested in the form of a dispute between him and a pseudonymous philosopher, McX. If McX recognizes certain entities (has a different ontology), but Quine does not, Quine “cannot admit that there is something which McX countenances and I do not,” because it contradicts his initial rejection. Quine refers to this traditional Platonic predicament of non-being as Plato’s beard: “nonbeing must in some sense be,” Quine notes, “otherwise what is it that there is not?”[1]

One instance of Plato’s beard in action is a disagreement between McX and Quine over the entity “Pegasus.” McX contests that if Pegasus somehow were not, then the use of the word Pegasus could not possibly be talking about anything- but its usage does talk about something, rendering that position incoherent, resulting in the conclusion that Pegasus is. Because McX clearly does not believe that space and time contain “a flying horse of flesh and blood,” he must provide details about what Pegasus is if it is not that. Quine rules out the possibility that it is just an idea in the mind, pointing out that it is not what “Pegasus” is referring to when people deny it.[2]

Distinguishing Naming and Meaning, via Russell’s Theory of Descriptions

An essential point of contention between Quine and McX reduces to what Quine describes as a gap between naming and meaning, and whether an utterance can be significant or not if does not purport to name some entity existing in reality. In the case of Pegasus, McX argued that if Pegasus were not, then the word would convey nothing (in other words, it would be insignificant). Quine invokes Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions to resolve this issue, disentangling the ambiguities and fallacies caused by McX’s poor language use. In particular, the theory of descriptions functions as a means of rephrasing the articles “the,” “a,” etc. to create propositions with better-defined referents. For example, the propositions “the current Czar of Russia is cute,” can be true or false, but in both cases could imply that there is either a Czar of Russia who is cute or a Czar of Russia who is not cute. However, it could be the case- as it is- that there is no current Czar of Russia. Russell’s theory of descriptions would rephrase the original statement as “There exists someone who is Czar of Russia who is cute,” thus making clearer the propositional nature of the existence of the Czar, in addition to his cuteness.

Quine utilizes Russell’s famous “The author of Waverly was a poet” example in order to illustrate the lack of ontological commitment entailed by singular descriptors, by showing that the descriptor can be contextually rephrased into another statement with a truth value. McX falsely assumes that there must be some objective reference in the statement, “the author of Waverly was a poet,” for the statement to be meaningful. Under Russell’s translation, however, the statement is changed to “Something wrote Waverly and was a poet and nothing else wrote Waverly,” thus shifting the burden of objective reference from the descriptive phrase to what is referred to by logicians as a “bound variable” (“something”). Bound variables- words such as “something,” “nothing,” and “everything”- are not names of specific entities, but refer to entities generally with a meaningful ambiguity.[3] The significance of the quantifiers does not require the presupposition of any preassigned objects. To be, according to Quine, is “to be the value of a bound variable” (emphasis added). With quantifiers in mind, Quine asserts that the notion of statements of nonbeing defeating themselves “goes by the board.”[4]

To reinforce his point, Quine anticipates and alleviates a potential problem with converting names to descriptors. In the “Pegasus” example, the word- a supposed name- cannot be processed immediately by Russell’s theory, and it must be rephrased to apply (e.g. “Pegasus was” becomes, perhaps, “Something was a winged horse that was captured by Bellerophon, and nothing else was that”). To make alleged names subordinate to Russell’s analysis, the word must first be translated into a description. Even if there is no evident definition or descriptive translation, an irreducible attribute of being Pegasus can be applied, granting the use of predicates “is-Pegasus” or “pegasizes,” resulting in the possible descriptor “the thing that is-Pegasus/pegasizes.” In summary, all (alleged) names can be converted to descriptions, and by Russell’s theory of descriptions, those descriptions can be eliminated. Quine thus concludes,

We need no longer labor under the delusion that the meaningfulness of a statement containing a singular term presupposes an entity named by the term. A singular term need not name to be significant.[5]

The Debate over Universals

At this juncture, Quine recognizes the need to address universals because of the introduction of predicates like “pegasizes,” having now dealt with the issue of rejecting the presupposition that Pegasus must in some sense be if it is said not to be. McX begins his argument for universals by citing the pre-philosophical common sense of recognizing that there are red houses, red sunsets, red roses, etc. The houses, roses, and sunsets have something in common, and that this commonality is all McX is referring to when he speaks of an attribute. That there are attributes is as “obvious and trivial”[6] as the fact that there are red houses, red sunsets, and red roses; no less does Quine expect from McX’s or anyone else’s ontology, which is basic to one’s conceptual scheme. Under McX’s conceptual scheme, the statement “there is an attribute ‘redness’” must follow from “there are red houses, red sunsets, etc.”[7]

Under a conceptual scheme different to McX’s, argues Quine, it is possible to admit the existence of red houses, roses, and sunsets while simultaneously denying that they have anything in common. “Redness” can be true of each of them individually, but there is no requirement that there must be some entity called “redness”; it could be that the houses, roses, and sunsets are all red irreducibly. Thus, there is no comparative gain in the explanatory power of McX’s theory provided by all entities given under the name “redness.” Incidentally, Quine notes that a potential argument for McX’s ontology was pre-empted by the earlier discussion of the difference between names and descriptions, and how the latter can be significant without becoming the former. Because of this, McX is unable to argue that in order for predicates like “red” or “is-red” to be meaningful, they must be names with the objective reference of a single universal entity.

In response, McX grants the distinction between naming and meaning, and cedes that “is red” and “pegasizes” are not names of attributes. With that, he counters that “meanings” are still universals, perhaps even things similar to the attributes he posits, whether named or not. Quine acknowledges this objection, explaining that he can only satisfy it by refusing to ontologically admit meanings, but he also explains his lack of hesitation in doing so: refusing meanings does not entail the absence of meaningfulness of words and statements. This is evidenced by the fact that McX and Quine can agree perfectly upon classification of linguistic forms as the meaningless and the meaningful, though McX’s criteria for meaningfulness includes the “having” (in one sense) of an abstract entity he labels a “meaning.”

Quine’s criteria are different; his basis for claiming the significance[8] of a linguistic utterance either derives from treating it as an ultimate and irreducible matter of fact, or from analyzing people’s ordinary reactions to the utterance in question and similar utterances. He reduces the useful ways that people commonly speak of meanings to two: the having of meanings (significance) and the sameness of meanings (synonymy). One’s “giving” the meaning of an  utterance is his utterance of a synonym in a more ordinary and clearer language than the original. If such an interpretation of meaning is unsatisfactory, then one can simply speak of an utterance as significant or insignificant, and in relationship to other utterances (in synonymy or heteronomy). Though Quine recognizes the difficulty and importance of handling this approach properly, he once more refers to the lack of any increase in explanatory power resulting from adopting McX’s ontology- in this case, the adoption of special and irreducible intermediary entities called “meanings.”

In light of the preceding arguments, McX is led to question whether any statements are possible that lead one to be committed to universals or other entities Quine finds unwelcome. Once again, Quine cites Russell’s theory of descriptions in tandem with quantifiers, explaining that the entities can be stated as bound variables, so long as it is said that “there is something [a bound variable] which red houses and red sunsets have in common.” As explained earlier, the only way to make ontological commitments is to use bound variables. If “to be is to be the value of a bound variable,” whatever is said by names can be spoken of without names; names can be converted to descriptions, and then eliminated by Russell’s theory of descriptions; the purported namehood of an utterance can be repudiated if no respective entity is affirmed by the proper use of bound variables. Variables of quantification have a range of reference over the whole of an ontology (regardless of the particular ontology), and an ontological presupposition is convincing if and only if it must be considered among entities in this range of reference in order to establish the truth of an affirmation.

Therefore, the utterance “some dogs are white” does not commit the speaker to recognizing doghood or whiteness as entities. Rephrased, it states, “some things that are dogs are white,” which only creates the requirement that the quantifier “something” has a range of reference that includes white dogs, but need not include whiteness or doghood. However, it is also recognized that the statement “some zoological species are cross fertile” entails a commitment to the abstract entities “zoological species” unless the subject of the statement is reducible to another entity. Generally, a commitment to any reference persists until some means of paraphrasing a statement can be devised to change (or properly delineate) its bound variable’s reference.

Choosing an Ontology

Bound variables alone do not commit one to any single ontology, but only describes the process by which one becomes committed to an ontology. One means of adjudicating among ontologies, relative to a particular theory, is by finding an ontology whose entities are required to be within the range of reference of the bound variables of the theory in order to render the affirmations of the theory true. Modern disagreement over the foundations of mathematics is divided almost exactly on the issue of which entities lie in bound variables’ permissible range of reference.

Quine suggests that Occam’s razor be fully applied as an adjudicator among ontologies and that any ontology should be accepted in the same way that scientific theories are accepted: one must seek the simplest theory that accounts for all of the evidence. In the case of ontology, one must seek the simplest conceptual scheme that can be created to account for all the elements of raw experience. Quine’s argument, by his implicit admission, refutes the realist position on universals only as much as he asserts that a physicalist ontology containing universals is a useful “myth,” specifically in the fields of the physical sciences and more so in mathematics; put differently, he refutes it only by undermining its necessity by emphasizing the marked difference between naming and meaning, untangling Plato’s beard in the process. In the end, he states that the question of which ontology to adopt remains unanswered, with only “tolerance and an experimental spirit” as advice and judgment to be reserved for each myth based on its quality relative to a particular point of view.

Critique

One potential shortcoming in Quine’s argument lies in his approach to singular terms- their elimination and replacement by quantifiers- as an application of Occam’s razor. As was explained, if singular terms can be done away with, then their supposed implications about existence vanish. Hence, by using a singular term, one need not acknowledge the existence of the entity described by the term in order to be speaking meaningfully. Yet, if quantifiers could be done away with in the same manner, would they not be also subject to ontological elimination? One such possible elimination arises from combinatory logic, which was initially intended as a means of clarifying the role of quantifiers in logic by their elimination, much as quantifiers were intended to clarify existential statements by a similar process. In her book Philosophy of Logics, Susan Haack notes, “Quine concedes that his criterion doesn’t apply directly to combinatory logic, but observes that it can be applied indirectly, via the translation of combinatory into quantified formula.”[9] This may only be an evasion of the demand that the elimination of quantifiers places on their ontological status (via Occam’s razor). Even without delving into deeper discussion, it is a possibility worth mentioning, as it questions the validity of one of Quine’s necessary steps in reasoning.

Assuming that this problem with Quine’s methodology is somehow irrelevant to his general reasoning or can be answered appropriately, Quine’s dismission of the necessity of universals, as part of a common trend in dismissing the imaginary problems of Plato’s beard, is quite effective. Indeed, something appears highly flawed about the presupposition that denying the existence of an entity somehow presupposes that entity in the same sense that affirming that entity’s existence does. Quine accurately assesses logical possibilities (though not in those exact words) as meaningful, but does not make the error of “stealing” the concept of existence by making it a predicate.

For the non-Quinean, how much can Quine’s reasoning be used to make a more decisive case against the realist position on universals? On an absolute basis, Quine seems hesitant to commit himself ontologically,[10] and does not rule out the possibility of an ontology containing universals; he merely rules out the possibility of a poorly-reasoned ontology containing universals. To utilize Quine’s argument from an objectivist standpoint, there is not much that can be meaningfully done in the discussion of universals besides Occamite elimination, as is true with any other unnecessary multiplication of entities. In communication and in action, often times a person consistently holding the realist view on universals and a person not holding the view are totally indistinguishable, except in their assertions about the nature of universals. Lacking positive proof of a position or falsification of its negatory position, an appeal to Occam’s razor is the only logical argument left to pursue.

[2] Here, Quine briefly introduces a subtler-minded pseudonymous philosopher- Wyman- who advances the argument that Pegasus is simply an unactualized possible. Hence, when it is said that “Pegasus is not,” what is really meant is that Pegasus does not possess the property of actuality; in other words, it is an entity that is already understood to be. Wyman’s definition of the word “existence” entails that “Pegasus” has spatio-temporal connotations if “Pegasus exists,” but that “exists” does not (it merely refers to actualization). Quine then moves on to discuss some problems with unactualized possibles. This discussion is not directly necessary for his discussion of universals, except in as much as unactualized possibles can be looked at as entities in a similar manner to universals.

[3] What Quine means by “ambiguity” in this instance is that the quantifiers are subject non-specific on their own and only necessitate the satisfaction of arbitrarily-stated conditions in a proposition, not that they are poorly defined in usage.

[4] P. 137

[5] P. 138

[6] P. 139

[7] Ibid.

[8] Quine uses “significant” as interchangeable with “meaningful.”

[9] Haack, Susan. Philosophy of Logics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

[10] At the very least, his hesitation is reflected in this article.

Changes in attitude toward laissez-faire capitalism historically have been generally defined by any or all of three major shifts: most importantly, the replacement of liberal political rights with economic entitlements; closely connected, a new emphasis on collective instead of individual good; and in effect, the belief in the use of organized coercion (government) as a valuable tool for bettering those collectives. Two contemporary thinkers, John Rawls and Robert Nozick, brought the debate about the role of government in a wealthy liberal democracy (such as ours) back to the philosophical forefront, asking the essential question: if they should at all, for what reasons should government be able to interfere with the market, beyond protecting its citizens from violence and fraud?[1] On one side, Rawls’ Theory of Justice attempts to justify a broader scope of government powers by appealing to a Kant-esque “original position,” in which agents must decide on principles of justice irrespective of what their physical position will actually be in the world. On the other, Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia sets out to construct a consistent account of the ideal libertarian state, and in the process reject Rawls’ arguments.[2] There is strong evidence – both in Nozick’s writings and elsewhere – that the position delineated in A Theory of Justice is a flawed justification for the liberal welfare state.

Rawls’ Equality and Difference Principles

Though the focus of this post will be on government’s role as a redistributor of wealth, a holistic understanding of Rawls’ account of government is essential to understanding his position on redistribution. His primary concern in exploring social justice is what rights and duties members of a society must have in its institutions, and in turn how the benefits (and burdens) of social cooperation should be distributed. He argues from two principles of justice: the equality principle and the difference principle. The former prescribes that each individual must possess the same level of liberty as each other individual, and the latter prescribes that social and economic inequalities should be rectified for the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. These are ordered by priority; the institutions of the first can not be surpassed by “greater social and economic advantages.” Rawls defines these two principles are part of a larger, more general conception of social values: “all social values – liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect – are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone’s advantage.” One essential implication in this statement is that institutionally, the course of action we should take (as constrained by the equality principle) is an empirical question. If general property rights, freedom of association, and other facets of laissez-faire capitalism most frequently lead to material inequality compared to centrally planned production, yet produce a level of output that makes everyone better off, then they ought to be instituted.

The Original Position

He arrives at his principles of justice by creating a thought experiment, the “original position,” from which he derives his notion of “justice as fairness.” Before doing so, he establishes two primary premises. The first is a constraint of social unity; the freedom and equality of citizens must be respected. The second pertains to the fact that there always exists a plurality of conceptions of the good; these include one’s fundamental beliefs, values, projects, personal loyalties, and so forth. Because of these underlying necessities, Rawls holds a contractualist position in order to create a theory of justice which does not depend on any of those conceptions, but one with which free and equal citizens could be expected to reasonably agree. The establishment of a contract (a consensual agreement) would be the only way of respecting the autonomy of individuals totally, while at the same time providing a framework for universal governance. For a simple example, a comprehensive moral doctrine such as utilitarianism (“always act in such a way that leads to the greatest happiness”) would not, in Rawls’ view, be used as a starting point from which societal institutions would be designed, because one can always reasonably disagree with such a doctrine. Instead, the principles of justice would be determined by the hypothetical rational agreement in what Rawls argues to be the fair conditions of the original position (hence “justice as fairness”).

The original position has several necessary characteristics to achieve Rawls’ conclusions about justice. Firstly, he defines the participants, positing rational agents, who, in the negotiation, seek the guarantee of rights and resources to pursue their individual conceptions of the good, reflect on them and change them, and apply them. These assumptions are responsible for traditional liberal institutions (rights) of “freedom of conscience”: freedom of speech, press, religion, etc. Likewise, they are partially explanatory of common, universally accessible public resources: free primary schooling, public libraries, universities, etc. Secondly, he delineates the critical constraints: the finality of the contract, and most importantly, the “veil of ignorance.” Those participating in the original position have no knowledge of what their natural endowment, their place in society, or their conception of the good will be, but they will have general knowledge of how the world works and expect moderate scarcity of resources. The purpose of the veil of ignorance is to prevent these self-interested agents from supporting principles of justice that are biased in favor of their characteristics, instead forcing them to adopt universalizable principles. They will not know who they will be when they enter society (rich or poor, utilitarian or Kantian, etc.), and thus any preferential policy which they advocate in the original position is equally likely (from their perspective) to be to their benefit as their detriment.

Rawls on Wealth Distribution

This leads to Rawls’ position on wealth redistribution. Its primary cause extends from the condition of utility maximization in the context of a lack of information about the distribution of outcomes. In effect, Rawls is appealing to the choices rational economic actors ought to make in the face of uncertainty. Imagine the following example of choice relating to uncertain outcomes. Someone must choose between two different coin-flip games: in one, the heads payoff is $5000, and the tails payoff is $0; in the other, the heads payoff is $2000, and the tails payoff is $1000. The coin is being flipped by a well-known trickster, who is reputable for his pleasure in biasing coins to any possible distribution. The player is aware of this, and thus does not know the probability that either heads or tails will occur on the coin, entailing a situation of total uncertainty. By Rawls’ (and standard game theoretic) reasoning, the player’s rational choice would be to choose the $2000-or-$1000 coin, in effect maximizing the outcome of the worst-case scenario. This coin is known as the maximin option, the uncertain game with the best worst outcome. In distributive justice, the maximin option would be the one in which the least advantaged, whoever it may be, will be guaranteed a certain payoff by society, whether it is in food, shelter, employment, healthcare, or education, at the expense of a higher payoff for others.

Rawls’ position is thus unique, in that he constructs it from no particular conception of the good except that of respecting individual autonomy at the inception of political principles. Unlike most advocates of distributive justice, he does not conclude his principles from some objective conception of the good, but only from a rational contractarian decision by agents to properly define the rules of social cooperation.

Objections a la Nozick and me

In opposition to Rawls, Nozick questions the validity of defining justice as some pattern of holdings- a material end-state. He holds that any theory of justice must either be end-result or historical, and either patterned or unpatterned. Nozick’s “entitlement” theory is historical and unpatterned; in short, a just distribution of wealth does not require any correspondence to some pattern (moral merit, need, etc.), but merely the appropriate history of how it was acquired. Nozick thus emphasizes the importance of “justice in acquisition” and “justice in transfer,” as opposed to “justice in holdings,” an important concept in the thought of the economic left.

Central to Nozick’s objections to Rawls is his assertion that liberty inevitably disrupts patterned holdings. An important part of ownership is the freedom to transfer things to others. This means that any given distribution, after it is allocated, will be immediately changed so long as individuals choose to freely exchange their possessions. In order for a principle of patterned distributive justice to be consistent, it must always be applied; thus, the only means of guaranteeing any specific distribution is by constant interference in the economy or the abolition of free individual exchange. In light of that, Nozick observes the alienation from the source of wealth caused by patterned distribution principles. Wealth is implicitly taken as a given thing to be divided, when, in fact, how it is divided affects how much wealth there will be over time.

Rawls’ general process of justification for welfare merits interpretation and criticism. The original position (OP) is flawed as an accurate representation of the frame in which valid principles of government, if there are any which do exist, should be determined. Assuming a group has no choice but to endure conditions in the OP as set forth by Rawls, their strategy makes sense. Discussing the OP from a different angle yields additional insight into its nature. With a specific focus on those issues of justice relating to property, we can reformulate the OP as a new thought experiment, in this manner: our world as we know it- with the rich and poor, the talented and untalented, etc.- must have a “Rawlsian original position” convention in order to determine the proper principles of justice. In order to do so, everyone must leave his actual person and move behind the veil of ignorance. Thus, an agent whose actual person is rich by talent and hard work will be unaware of his actual status, and, in accordance with his rational interest in the original position, will have no choice but to accept the maximin set of rules and unwittingly sacrifice his wealth.

To implicitly reiterate this formulation, Nozick cites an example of students taking an examination who decide to go to the original position to determine what the criteria for grading the test should be. Each party in this contract will seek to secure the best arrangement for himself. The maximin option will likely entail that what will not be chosen is a policy based on what students earn through their performances.

This exposes a pair of critical observations about Rawls’ argument: first, that it depends on the notion that gains from differences in nature are “unfair,” “undeserved,” or “morally arbitrary”; second, that individual merit (such as choosing to work hard to develop one’s talents instead of lazily watching television) is not relevant. His argument shifts from one position which (reasonably) says that “deserved” is not a valid descriptor of natural endowments, to another that holds that those endowments are explicitly “undeserved.” The difference between the two is clear: the former merely reflects the value-neutrality of natural outcomes, allowing one the right to individually benefit from them; the latter clearly describes a situation which normatively requires redress. It appears that Rawls- if he chooses to reject a person’s entitlement to the benefits of his own natural states- will be caught in between contradictorily ignoring individual merit and holding a view of humans as deterministic zombies.

Empirical issues?

Another major area of contention against the general idea of government-enforced “distributive justice” lies in the historical and expected performance of institutions manifesting those principles.[3] There is little doubt that humans are, at least generally, self-interested. Their admission into a government post does little to alter that fact: agents will always seek to maximize their own utility, which is for the most part only checked by externally-imposed penalties. As a point of clarification, self-interested activity need not be self-oriented; the defining feature of self-interest is the pursuit of one’s conception of the good, no matter what it is. Other-oriented behavior is still detrimental to the efficiency of operating a government post, so long as the objectives of an action are not functionally isomorphic with having an interest in the efficiency or proper operation of government (e.g. one gives preference to one’s family, or ethnic group, etc.) Institutional design should ideally be aimed to create this isomorphism of personal to public interest, in the theoretical tradition of Madison, established in Federalist No. 51; though this may be the best solution, this does not mean that it is totally successful in absolute terms.

The operation of institutions to enforce justice in general is faced by many challenges. Simply dealing with the basics – military, police, and courts – is already a daunting task to do correctly. Even on the comparatively simple starting point of individual rights to life, liberty, and property, cases of conflicting obligation arise on a frequent basis, particularly in establishing “reasonable expectations” in cases where a contract was not explicitly written and signed. The incorporation of distributive justice into the system of obligations complicates it immensely. Now, those tasked with adjudicating disputes must appeal to a broader host of laws and guarantees, while adapting to the constraints of equality, scarce resources, and respecting Rawls’ first principle of justice.

The cost of oversight is borne by more institutional expenditure (bureaucracy to watch bureaucracy, which may require some oversight of its own) which ultimately is borne by the constituent public. Besides taxes, the individuals must be attentive to their tax dollars at work. End-state distributive justice, as in the case of adjudication, not only necessitates the creation of more laws and more bureaucracies to execute those laws, but requires more lawyers, advocates, lobbyists, action groups, and others of their kind. Essentially, an entire sector of labor and knowledge must be dedicated to navigating complex institutions instead of those resources being applied to more productive endeavors. Furthermore, for the average citizen, a greater level of education and attentiveness to current affairs is required to ensure that he is not being swindled by special interest groups via these institutions. The bottom line is that he must trade off work hours or leisure in order to protect his “investment” in the government. His alternative is that his tax dollars go to waste-a problem plaguing governments worldwide today.

On the flip side of the problem of Rawls ignoring individual merit is the issue of diminished incentives to produce. In a market setting, wealth redistribution can be construed as a subsidy (or a kind of de facto tax) on a particular kind of behavior, namely labor. Rawls cannot simply assume that individuals will work and produce as they would have before; with an expectation of a certain level of well-being, many recipients of welfare benefits will be far less likely to produce the value of the goods and services they are guaranteed. From their perspective, they possess an exogenous level of utility irrespective of their action (sans filing the correct forms). Not all of them will be dependent on government services for factors supposedly beyond their control. The presence of those institutions will have a distortionary effect on how wealth is generated in the economy. Even argued strictly in terms of Rawls’ theory, these observations about redistributive establishments demonstrate that the “pie” is heavily damaged by the presence of such institutions.

Some would argue that wealth redistribution and other forms of economic interventionism are institutions we need or ought to have, and that they can work if they are designed correctly or if the right people staff them. To some degree, that is true, but only in as much as it is true of all institutions and forms of government. If people of the appropriate mindset who possess the appropriate values are readily available, then almost any system of any values will not produce unbearable results. Small, Republican city-states of the kind that Rousseau so often praised are examples of such agreement between people and state. Nonetheless, this is an ambitious and unrealistic necessary precondition for any system, which is more than often faced with the reality of many people with many competing interests. The fact that so many brilliant minds are and have been ideologically committed to the construction of wealth-redistributive institutions, yet at the same time have not succeeded in designing comprehensive ones that have proven to be effective, sustainable, and cost-efficient, is testament to the fact that the inherent nature of such institutions conflicts with the inherent nature of humans and reality. Of course, by no means does this paper claim to be the last word: to do justice to Rawls’ Theory of Justice (no pun intended), a fuller exposition of Rawls’ potential counter-objections as well as greater clarification of the assumptions at play are required. Nevertheless, the essence of the argument stands that Rawls, as one of the most prominent supporters of the liberal welfare state, must address several problems- both theoretical and empirical- with his conception of justice.

Sources:

Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press (1999).

Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books, Inc.

[2] Nozick’s position in totality is much less linear, and much more difficult to summarize, than Rawls’. That is not to say that Rawls’ position is simpler or dumber, but just that his account is easier to capture briefly. My exposition of Nozick will thus be limited to his position vis-à-vis Rawls’ view on distributive justice.

[3] Evidence generally supporting my argument are nations with major government intervention and spending that have descended into massive debt. The United States is one such example. Also, most of the nations of Europe (notably France and Germany) are suffering from large debts and unfunded welfare liabilities which account for as much as 250% of GDP. Enumerating many specific institutional cases would be an interesting basis for further study of my assertions.